Why Lovers Can Never Compete
by Mackenzie L
Summary: There was something undeniably romantic about opposing one's lover in a game of chess. They were unrelenting in this small-scale battle, both desiring to emerge the victor...but only one would win. Two-shot. Written for MelissaMargaret.
1. Why Lovers Can Never Compete

**Why Lovers Can Never Compete**

**By Mackenzie L.**

_This two-shot is written for the witty and wonderful MelissaMargaret for being the best support I could ask for. I love you, sweetheart. ^.^_

_*Twilight Saga and characters belong to Stephenie Meyer._

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_January, 1990_

The snow was laying thick outside in the yard. Minutes ago tiny emerald blades of grass had been peeking out from their drowning white sea, but now they had been smothered. Deep gray clouds hung heavy and low in the sky, creating an atmosphere that would have seemed oppressive, but to two vampires hoping for an excuse to stay cooped up inside for the rest of the evening, the scenery outside that window was heavenly.

Esme watched as her husband finished calling in to check up on every one of his patients in the hospital. He leaned against the window where the snow was falling in a careful frame around his beautiful blond head, his back pressed against the glass as he stared intently at nothing in particular. His gaze, no matter how empty it might have been to anyone else, could never look that way to Esme. Carlisle's eyes were always full of an unnecessarily tender intimacy for even the tiniest spot on the wall. His gaze could melt steel without a single blink. He stared at the empty air like a man would stare at his lover, as if he were patiently waiting for the particles to turn pink under the heat of his attention.

Esme would have turned pink as well, but her cheeks were stained a pure snow white forever. Still, she often wondered if her husband knew that the warmth was very much alive underneath her skin when he looked at her, when he touched her...

She bit her lip as she approached the place where he sat in the window, the sound of his soothing voice making her knees weak as she walked. She made it just in time before collapsing gingerly into the sofa across from where he was seated.

His intense eyes shifted from nothing onto _her_, and she savored the delicate burst of heat that rushed from the base of her throat to her cheeks.

Still listening to the small, uncertain voice on the other line, Carlisle smiled softly at his wife, silently promising that the phone call would come to its end as soon as he could manage. Esme grinned patiently back, letting her head rest against the pillow as she continued to watch him. But this time his eyes did not leave hers to again lavish attention on nothing. This time his gaze contentedly dawdled over the features of her face, sinking into her soft skin and swimming in the liquid golden pools of her affectionate eyes.

"Have a good night," he finally murmured, drawing the telephone conversation to a polite close. He set the phone down beside him and rested both hands on his knees, tilting his head to one side to match the angle of his wife's. "Sorry I kept you waiting."

"I forgive you," she murmured with a pleasant smile.

Carlisle sighed as he drew his eyes to the frosty white window. "It looks as though we're trapped indoors for the rest of the evening, doesn't it...?"

There was a distinct note of buried glee in his tone that anyone but his wife would have missed.

Esme pouted insincerely. "What a shame."

"It's been a while since we've had virtually nothing to do," he hinted, turning back to catch her eye.

"I must say I've looked forward to this moment for such a long time," Esme announced jokingly. "Yet now that it has arrived, I'm not very pleased."

Leaning forward slightly, he asked in a low voice, "What can I do to help with that, darling?"

He was clearly expecting something provocative in response, and though giving in to such an expectation was inevitable by the evening's end, Esme decided to prolong it playfully. "Why don't we play a game?"

The way Carlisle's eyes twinkled made Esme wish she _had_ been implying something more in the suggestion.

His lips curved into a positively sanguine smile as he asked, "What sort of a game?"

The delightful note of an unborn chuckle in his voice made Esme's heart flutter. "I was thinking of _chess_, my love."

His grin did not disappear as he innocently defended himself. "I was merely thinking of 'hide-and-seek', but I see our tastes differ somewhat."

"Are you saying you prefer more 'action' than I do?" she asked as she sat up from the sofa, crossing her arms over her chest.

"It has little to do with preference," he said agreeably. "I believe we're both equally skilled in either department."

"Then you'll have no objections if I challenge you to a game of chess," she posed softly.

His eyes flicked to the mentioned chessboard in the corner of the room. "I suppose that would be an amusing diversion from this weather..."

"A _full _game, Carlisle," Esme sighed, lifting a hand to draw his face back to her. "You know what that means: no disruptions, no phone calls, no getting up to adjust the curtains... Just one game, straight through to the very end. And this time we're actually going to finish and declare a champion."

He looked eager yet doubtful at once. "You really believe that you can sit through an entire game of chess without getting up to adjust the curtains, Esme?" he teased.

She smiled softly as she pulled out a chair. "We'll see how long _you _last."

Her husband smirked knowingly as he seated himself across from her, carefully making sure that there was in fact _not _ample space to accommodate both pairs of legs beneath table. As a fortunate side-effect, Esme's legs brushed against his with the slightest shifting in her chair. There was no point to sitting still for so long in one place if they could not somehow be touching the entire time.

The pieces stood still and statue-like on their board, mapped on marble squares, in opposing colors that oddly resembled mocha and cream. Each sculpted piece stood silently guarding its assigned square on the board. There was a quiet grandeur about the chess board when it was not being used. As if all of the pieces were always poised and waiting – two enemy armies facing each other in cold silence on a stiff, geometric battlefield of marble.

They had not touched that board in months, yet it was always waiting patiently in the background, nothing more than a pretty prop to accent the room's elaborate decor. Had they been human, their neglect would have resulted in a rusty first match after so long without practice, but being vampires, they had both maintained their nearly flawless skills since the last time they'd played.

It was often a challenge for one to declare a blatant victory over the other. Since the very first time they had played the game together, they had been similarly talented in the strategic art of chess. Esme recalled her irrepressible nervousness the first time she had sat across the board from Carlisle. It had been an entirely different experience with the doctor than it had been when she'd played against Edward. Somehow it was no longer just a friendly game to pass the time when the blond doctor stared at her from the other side. A mere game became a seductive sort of battle, a subtly flirtatious competition of wits... and the occasional accidental brushing of fingers when stealing an opponent's piece.

It was always that way with Carlisle. Never just a game.

"Look at you – we haven't even started yet and already you're wearing that look of deep concentration on your face," he broke her reverie, his low voice full of loving amusement.

"I was just remembering the first time we played chess together," Esme admitted with a wistful sigh.

Her husband's eyes grew distant, their cloudy topaz color warming as he recalled the memory. "Ah, yes. I remember it well."

"Now, remind me who won again?" she asked with a grin.

Carlisle almost managed to roll his eyes. "I've told you this a thousand times, darling: I _let _you win."

Esme would forever be unconvinced of this, but that did not keep her from humoring her husband every now and again. "Of course, of course."

It was an ongoing joke between them whether or not Carlisle had in fact let Esme win their first game by will. Every year it seemed, they had the same argument, and every year they failed to prove who was the true champion by never managing to finish a proper game. Hopefully this time they would rectify that once and for all.

Still cloudy eyed, Carlisle smiled reminiscently as he looked down to where his wife's hand lay on the edge of the table.

"I remember your hand was laying next to the board..." He whispered as he picked up her hand and carefully positioned it beside the board in the same place. "Right here..." His eyes glistened as he touched her fingers affectionately. "And all I wanted was to reach out and touch your hand the entire time. It was awfully distracting." He smiled.

"Well, now I know _why _I won," she whispered cheekily, tickling the center of his palm as he lifted his hand from hers.

He chuckled heartily. "It's not going to work this time, I'm afraid."

"I'm sure I can think of other ways to distract you."

Carlisle leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh, betrayed by the broadness of his utterly charmed smile. "All right, then... Enough banter, don't you think?"

"Yes, you're right. Chess requires silence."

"May I at least be given permission to breathe?"

Because Esme couldn't imagine spending a full hour without the beautiful melody of her husband's steady breaths, she consented with feigned reluctance.

"I'll make an exception for you."

He arched an eyebrow as she lifted her first pawn to move a space forward, and as usual she second guessed the move before it was made.

"You're trying to trick me," she accused bluntly.

A guilty smile tugged at his lips. "I'm doing nothing of the sort."

"We're adding another rule: No silly facial expressions."

"How is this a silly expression?" he inquired innocently, rearranging his perfect eyebrow into its original arch.

"Carlisle..."

Though thoroughly agonized by the beauty of his gentle accent, Esme tried not to show just how affected she was.

He merely chuckled apologetically and bowed his head to consider his first move.

Mirroring her middle pawn forward, Carlisle set his first white piece across from her brown piece in the center of the board. Esme couldn't help but imagine the two pieces engaging in some secret conversation as they approached each other, set apart from their counterparts to negotiate peace before the battle began... Pawns looked so innocent and approachable, so reluctant to engage in combat when the brigades behind them were all but forcing them forward. Esme had always thought each piece on the board had a distinctive kind of character to it.

The King was a stiff and stoic presence in the background, quietly assessing the power of his personal army from afar. He stood tall, but if one looked closely, one could see that the King was nervous for the strategic fight yet to come. He was at risk, and he knew it.

But his Queen was not so easily threatened. She was an icy assassin, with the wit to counter any who would dare to stand in her way. The Queen was confident that she would win each and every battle.

The knight was graceful, elegant, and swift, navigating the field in shifty angles where others could not manage. The bishop, an evil genius masquerading as an honorable comrade. The rook was a silent watcher, unassuming and simplistic on the outside as he waited to strike in the moment his opponent least expected it.

To Esme, everything had a personality.

As if reading her thoughts, Carlisle gave her a wicked sort of half-smile, an unabashed gleam enchanting her from the depths of his golden eye. She smiled wryly to herself as their fingers danced gracefully across the board for several minutes, committing the same, predictable dozen or so moves that began every game. Things would get interesting later...

There was something undeniably romantic about opposing one's lover in a game of chess. It was a war, but it was a microcosmic one, planned perfectly in the safety of one's own sitting room upon a marble platform. They were entirely in control of their assigned teams – mortal enemies for this brief but thrilling time frame where they were willing to fight to the death. Though it was just a game, it felt very real for those few hours they played. The taunting seduction of not knowing what the other's plans were was strangely addicting. They were, after all, lovers who knew one another on the most intimate of terms, and yet during this game they tried to mercilessly trick each other through cunning smiles and arched eyebrows. They were unrelenting in this small-scale battle, both desiring to emerge the victor.

As their conflicting strategies slowly began to complicate, Carlisle leaned forward, setting his elbow down on the hard wood table and cradling his chin against his knuckles in an irresistibly classical expression of thought.

"I'm reminded of Auguste Rodin's great masterpiece..." Esme mused as the image of her husband sparked an uncanny resemblance of _The Thinker _in her artistically preoccupied mind.

"Surely I'm a bit more dynamic than that, darling," he cocked his head with a sweet look of challenge.

"A bit more charismatic as well. I'll give you credit for that."

He laughed, and into the silence they dove once again, only to whisper the occasional _"Check" _when the game called for such speech.

The surgeon's hand was steady as he lifted his bishop and swept it through the threatening diagonal toward his wife's vulnerable pawn. Esme sighed in dismay as Carlisle stole yet another of her valuable pieces from the board. She could always forgive him, though. The way Carlisle took those pieces was different than many others would have done it. While the naturally prideful chess master would eagerly snatch a piece from its square to claim it, Carlisle merely wrapped two gentle fingers around the head of the piece and carried it lovingly to place it upright in the box. Rather than looking like it was trapped in prison, that piece looked reluctantly content to be relieved of its duties.

Esme herself was prone to the victorious snatching method of stealing her husband's pieces from the board. Often she was simply too excited to lift each one in a delicate ascension toward heaven with the tips of two fingers. She made sure Carlisle knew that his piece was gone for good when she took it. While Carlisle's box was neatly ordered with each piece in its proper ranking, Esme's box was full of innocent white characters, laying haphazardly over each other like a slaughtered group of failed soldiers.

There was a beauty to the stark differences in the way they each approached the playful battle. But the best part of all was the tension that rose toward the last few minutes of the game – with just four or so pieces left, both their queens were in mortal danger.

For these few stressful minutes, it was no longer just a chess game – it was a matter of life or death. But somehow it was softened by the love they showed for each other in the most unassuming gestures. The most common move Carlisle favored was to gently touch his foot to Esme's beneath the table. It was just a subtle reminder – just a nudge to scatter her worries away.

Her face softened as she felt the welcome contact, and her hand returned to the board with renewed confidence.

A glint of gold caught Carlisle's eye as his wife's well-versed slender fingers crossed the squares to move her last knight. A familiar feeling of relief came upon him whenever he saw that slim golden band fitted snugly around her marriage finger. It fit her so perfectly, he couldn't help but notice it. He watched it sparkle humbly under the dim light, a satisfying tightening in his chest as her fingers moved gracefully, happily bearing the weight of his promise wherever she went.

Sometimes when he saw it begin to slip down her finger, he had to fight the urge to reach over and push it back. Often times the urge overpowered him, and before he realized what he was doing, he had already reached across the board. He took her hand as she contemplated her next move, and she narrowed her eyes at the disruption.

But she would forgive him again, as he selected her second-to-last finger and gently pressed the ring further past her knuckle. He pushed it back until it resisted him, tucked as tightly as possible around the base of her thin finger. When Carlisle lifted his eyes to look at her face, she was looking straight at him – her eyes too wide and too gold to be real. Esme's love was rich and receptive in her gaze, silently thanking him for the unnecessary reminder.

From that point on, she would discreetly twist the ring about her finger when she thought he wasn't looking. He smiled to himself when he noticed her doing it, but he pretended that it had not even crossed his attention.

Every time a piece was moved, Esme's foot might brush warningly against Carlisle's ankle beneath her chair. He felt the unpredictable nudge against his instep as he advanced toward her Queen, pleasantly startled by the delightful shudder that rushed up his leg at the brief but unexpected contact.

"I noticed your feet have been fidgeting a bit, darling," he said quietly, unable to resist. "Growing restless are we?"

"I'm not fidgeting," she argued insincerely.

He raised an eyebrow.

A telling smile crossed Esme's face against her will. "I was just getting... comfortable," she excused, settling her foot atop his beneath the table.

The doctor was unconvinced, but clever enough not to say anything on the matter. He surrendered by laying his left hand down beside the board, palm up and open, a blatant invitation for her to set her own hand perfectly within his – and an appealing one at that.

Knowing she was not expected to resist the invitation, Esme caved and slipped her hand to rest for a moment in his.

There was a sharp, almost voyeuristic gleam in his gentle eyes as his gaze fell to their joined hands – as if there were something entirely un-innocent in the innocent gesture...

If it had been distracting to watch his hand laying unfilled by the board, it was twice as worse having her hand held by his while trying to complete the game. During the most crucial last moments of the battle, Esme found that she was unable to concentrate on keeping her most valuable players protected. Before she knew it, her husband had announced the death sentence in his cotton-soft voice.

"Checkmate."

Like everything Carlisle said, he said it with tenderness, with forgivable confidence, and with the undertone of apology. The combination of conflicting flavors was utter music to her ears as it fell from his lips.

"You cheated," Esme complained, though her voice suggested everything but disappointment.

A lovingly ribald grin crossed his face as he squeezed her hand, leaning closer to her face across the table. "By holding your hand?" His voice was irritatingly innocent, causing her heart to flutter like a caged canary.

"It is against the rules to touch your opponent during a game," Esme argued pointlessly, her fingers already trembling for what she knew would soon come.

"The game is over now," Carlisle declared in a hushed voice, discarding the last chess piece to take her chin between his victorious fingers. "This means I may touch you to my heart's content, does it not?"

Without an ounce of bitterness at having lost the game, Esme surrendered. "If you say so…"

With her consent, Carlisle leaned in and kissed his wife. It was indeed the kiss of a humble vanquisher – gentle yet commanding, proud yet forgiving. He could have chosen to touch her in any way, but he had chosen to touch her mouth to mouth. And from the strength and passion of that one kiss, Esme could tell that he had been waiting to give her this since the battle had begun.

"Does this make me the champion?" he breathed against her lips.

Convincing as his victory kiss had been, Esme decided she wouldn't mind receiving another.

As she opened her eyes and reached for the box of discarded chess pieces, she whispered, "I demand a rematch."

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_**A/N:** Head on over to chapter two to read the rematch. :)_


	2. The Rematch

**The Rematch**

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"You're going to regret this," Carlisle whispered playfully as Esme began replacing the discarded pieces one at a time.

She only smirked at his warning. "Strangely enough, I don't think I will."

The pieces of the chessboard were rearranged far more quickly this time around, each with a pleasant little 'plink' against its marble square. Carlisle had not offered a hand to assist his wife, so she had filled the board quickly on her own. The tension was thicker now that the true victory was at stake. Esme had one chance to prove herself, and if she happened to be unsuccessful, then she would surrender with wounded pride.

She was going to make sure that did _not _happen.

Carlisle was in no way opposed to granting his wife a mercy round. For reasons that were both secret and selfish, he enjoyed prolonging the game for the teasing torture of it all. He would allow himself to drift this time, savoring the artistic grace of her slender hands as she traveled across the board. Having won the first game he considered himself at a secure advantage to sacrifice just a bit of his concentration.

Perhaps he had sacrificed more than just a bit.

"You've been taking an awfully long time to decide your next move, my dear husband."

Theoretically, his next move would have been to reach across the table, curl his hand around the back of her beautiful neck, lean forward and bring her lips to his.

But alas, this was not a valid move in chess.

Pity.

Esme raised an elegant auburn eyebrow, the quivering evidence of a reluctant smile pinching the dimples in her cheeks.

He truly did consider kissing her right then.

And the best part was, she would have never expected it.

"A wise player often takes his time to consider his strategy," Carlisle replied stiffly.

"Then maybe you'd like to explain how I'm currently winning," Esme retorted with a smirk that gently bruised his pride.

He lifted an eyebrow. "That's what you'd like to believe."

"Oh, so we're going to have a repeat of our first time?"

Carlisle's mind instantly swerved in an entirely different direction. "Our first time...?"

Esme's dim golden eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms gracefully over her chest. "_Playing chess_," she finished pointedly.

Her foot brushed against him beneath the table, the toe of her shoe stroking briefly up the side of his calf.

"Or could it just be that you're having trouble concentrating, Doctor?"

He chuckled nervously, drawing distracted little circles around his Queen with his baby finger. "What would give you that idea?"

His wife tilted her head, allowing her sharp gaze to follow the motions of his finger before rising back to his face. "Your eyes seem to be everywhere _but_ on the board..."

Carlisle steepled his fingers together and pressed them to his lips, staring at her from behind a stealthily hidden smile. "I am looking at the board," he muttered against his folded hands.

Esme grinned, unconvinced, her eyes sparkling like chardonnay in the warm light of the lamp. "You were looking at me."

"It's proper to look at someone when they're speaking to you," he retaliated politely.

"Apparently you think it's proper to look at someone when they're breathing, blinking, and moving as well," she presumed, her most winning smile firmly in place. "You must have had quite a strange upbringing, Doctor Cullen."

Being a gentleman, he should have granted her the expected "touché_", _but Esme clearly knew when her points were due.

Carlisle bit his bottom lip to conceal a chagrined smirk. "I won't argue that."

Her eyes blazed with sweet satisfaction as she smoothly brought her knight into his troubled zone. "Check."

Carlisle sighed in what seemed to be rather willing defeat. "I'm beginning to think you're right about this being a repeat of our first time."

Esme had to fight against the urge to flutter her eyelashes cheekily at him. "Would that be so horrible?"

Her husband's eyes softened languidly at her rhetorical question. "As I recall, it was _not_ a very horrible experience."

Esme suspected her expression was just as witlessly starry-eyed.

"I don't believe it was, either..."

_- 68 years earlier -_

Esme knew there had been something different about the doctor when he came home from work that evening. He had walked in on her as she was organizing the chess board by the parlor window, greeting her not with "hello" or a "good evening" but with something very unexpected.

"You've played chess with Edward many times, but you've never played against me," he noted forwardly.

Esme turned around to face her future husband, her expression one of delicate surprise. "You've never offered."

Carlisle must have noticed the tentative nature in her tone. His face brightened as he stepped forward, hoping to put her at ease. They were, for the first time in a while, perfectly alone. It was now or never.

"Well, I'm offering now," he said, his most charming grin in place as he freed both arms from the sleeves of his overcoat. "Do you accept?"

With a shy nod, Esme agreed to battle her gracious doctor in the game.

She watched in fascination as he slipped off his white lab coat, then his sweater, then the buttons of his cuffs and collar… She could not help thinking there was something painfully intimate about this. Esme may have been naïve in many ways, but she was in no way oblivious. Out of relentless nerves, she had to wonder why would he felt the need to remove layers and undo buttons for a simple chess game…

He had looked torturously handsome as he set the carved pieces of crystal down on the board, each carefully centered in its proper square by his practiced fingers. There was a small, tight smile in place on his face, as if he were keeping a well-guarded secret from her as he set up the board. If she had seen that expression on any other man's face, Esme would have assumed he was setting himself up for a cheat. But this was Carlisle, and Carlisle would never have dreamed of cheating...

Esme was quite confident in her strategic abilities in chess, having nearly mastered Edward the mind reader many times before. Of course she had never been quite lucky enough to win a single game. But who could possibly beat the telepathic teenager?

Esme knew that if she were going to beat anyone worthwhile at this game, it would have to be Carlisle. She had accepted his invitation to play with fair confidence that she had a chance to at least match his skills. But as he sat down across from her to begin the game, a firm wave of sudden doubt entered her belly.

This was not going to be as easy as she had thought. With Carlisle sitting directly across from her the entire time...Carlisle staring at her the entire time...watching her every move. Already his eyes seemed to have sharpened for the carnage to come, his bright golden gaze strong and alert. His feet were so close to hers beneath the table she could practically feel them though they were not even touching hers. The way they had both arranged themselves at the table was frightfully favorable for distraction. All it would have taken was for one of them to accidentally slide one foot forward…

As Esme had expected it was not an easy game.

They were painfully quiet at first, neither knowing what to say to the other, just going through the motions of their first dozen moves without much thought. Occasionally, one would catch the other staring when they chanced an upward glance, but it was often dismissed as a trick of the imagination.

Then, when the game complicated a bit, things began to change.

Instead of remaining still and silent, they began to converse lightly between turns. It began as simple small talk - silly weather related drivel, and how things had been holding up at the hospital during the past week. Then the conversation began to shift, taking a more philosophical turn.

"I've often heard it said that a game of chess can be considered a metaphor for life," Carlisle mentioned casually as he stole one of her pieces from the board.

Esme was intrigued, but not enthusiastic. At least not yet. "Hm. How do you like that?" she replied, matching his casual tone.

"I was wondering if you would tell me," he murmured, tilting his head just enough that he caught her wandering eyes.

Then suddenly, the atmosphere was not so casual anymore.

"Oh, I don't know," Esme sputtered, her heart swarming with intense and confusing feelings. "Chess as a metaphor for life? It seems a bit...drastic."

"Drastic?" Carlisle sounded offended.

"You don't agree?"

The fine muscles in his neck quivered as he let forth an achingly beautiful chuckle. He shrugged. "I've always thought the metaphor held many truths in it."

Esme looked away, shaking her head.

"Perhaps you would like me to prove those truths to you," he proposed softly.

Naturally, she had no choice but to consent. "I suppose that could be...interesting."

A tender smile crossed his lips. "You realize of course that you use both the right and left side of your brain as you play chess, do you not?"

She narrowed her eyes. "What significance does that have?"

An animated intensity took over his features then, as he explained to her in a deep and entrancing voice just how many subtleties of chess she was missing. "The game of chess is not only about logic; it is equal parts logic and creativity. It isn't just a game, it is an art. You must be able to find your way through thousands of scenarios each move you make will have crucial effects on the next; a dizzying chain of events until..." His voice faded from its hypnotic flow as his fingers dropped a single crystal bishop into the square beside her king. "Check."

"How did you do that?" she whispered in disbelief.

"You dropped your defenses," he pointed out wisely.

Epically flustered, Esme slid her chair back slightly in defense. "This isn't a war, Carlisle."

He arched an eyebrow and just barely held back what would have been a particularly devastating smile. "Isn't it?"

Thoughtlessly, Esme made her next move with hasty fingers. "No, it's just a game," she tried to assure herself in vain.

"Can you not appreciate the power struggle we share in each move we make? See how you have put me in a position of peril from this one jump forward?" he asked as he touched the piece she had just brought forward. "The knight now becomes the dominant player. Even a lowly pawn can force the king himself to surrender. There is such beauty in the dynamics of every piece as it changes position across the board."

Slowly, Esme began to discover the beauty of which Carlisle spoke. "Yes, I see what you mean…"

His fingers slipped around one carved crystal figure to carry it three spaces towards her.

"Do you notice how every move you make affects every move that I make?" he asked in a low voice.

Blindly, Esme gripped the first of her pieces she could find and placed it in a square two spaces away from the one Carlisle had just moved.

"Yes," she absently answered.

"Do you see how we play off of each other, we anticipate every move the other will perform next; we are constantly thinking through our next maneuver, planning our decisions before the counter move has even been made?"

When her eyes at last drifted down to the board, Esme watched as Carlisle mercifully nudged his piece into the space directly beside her own.

"Yes..." she gave in at last, unable to beat the irrefutable perfection of his entirely unnecessary speech. "I believe it is somewhat metaphorical," she added in a tender whisper.

But the metaphor of which Carlisle had spoken did not remind Esme so strongly of "life"... It did, however, remind her of something else. Something shamelessly suggestive. Something that was gorgeously esoteric as it brewed within his eyes, but ever so blatant as it left his lips.

He seemed satisfied nonetheless that he had earned her agreement. Sitting back in his chair, Carlisle allowed his foot to move closer to Esme's underneath the table. The toe of his shoe just barely touching hers, they were both painfully aware of the inadequate contact, but neither was forward enough to address it. They each pretended not to notice, even as they were both tragically in tune with every breath they took, hoping to hear a hint that the other had felt it too...

After a long impasse, Carlisle lifted his rook and moved it silently across the board. This time his fingers were not so quick to let go. Instead, he clung to the piece for a moment or two, as if wondering where was the best place to drop it.

"The decisions are getting more difficult," Esme pointed out.

Clearly distracted, Carlisle nodded lightly and drew his eyes back to the board.

She bit her lip, trying to catch his gaze. "Are you still here?" she teased, hiding a pleased smile beneath the gentle clutch of her teeth.

"Hm? Oh, I'm terribly sorry. My brain is beginning to ache." Carlisle nearly winced at his poor excuse, knowing full well that it was not only his brain that felt an ache.

Savoring the slight shift in power, Esme smiled with a bit more confidence. "It's just as you said, every move we make now will effect the next. There is no turning back."

Now her philosophy was the irrefutable one.

In the end, it was Carlisle who surrendered.

_"No turning back..."_

******-}0{-** _  
_

There had been nothing life-altering about that game of chess. Only because it had been their first time playing against each other did they each remember it as such.

"It's getting dark outside already," Carlisle mused as he glanced back at the frosty window.

"We've been playing far too long," Esme giggled.

"Should we leave it here and call it a tie?" he proposed hopefully. It was worth the effort.

"I'm not willing to surrender so easily," she informed him with a warning glance.

_Of course she wasn't_.

Carlisle sighed, engrossed by the tender trickles of thought that creased in his wife's smooth forehead. Her eyes were drawn in deep concentration, and he thought of those times when she would sometimes stare at _him _like that. As if he were the only thing in existence...

Carlisle enjoyed being a puzzle to Esme, as much as he enjoyed solving the puzzles she presented to him. But this puzzle on the chess board seemed unsolvable by either of them.

They appeared to have reached a deadlock of sorts, during which they fiddled back and forth with noncommittal touches to random pieces only to abandon each on a second thought.

As she struggled to decide on her next move, Esme worried her bottom lip with her teeth, leaving tiny indentations in the soft pink flesh. Carlisle longed to make each of those marks disappear with the generous caress of his own lips, if only she would let him...

He saw her fingers reaching for the piece that would serve as the key to her victory. Carlisle had been keeping steady vigil on Esme's proud ivory queen throughout the game, as if she were the captivating beauty he could never call his own. Tentatively, Esme's fingertips plucked the crown of the queen and carried her in weightless whimsy over the last few spaces she needed to trap her husband.

Her queen was in power over his king. The woman posed a danger to the man. Femininity had dominated over masculinity.

When she thought of it like this, Esme was even more pleased she had won.

She paused for the effect of it all, savoring her win with the quiet grace of a loving wife. Now that the moment had come she felt little need to rub in her conquest. She instead folded her hands agreeably on the edge of the table, a gentle smile in place as she whispered the defeating curse.

"Checkmate."

There was something to be gained from saying it softly. Esme now experienced the feeling of a humble triumph as her husband had demonstrated so nobly for her benefit before. At her own expense, she surrendered her bragging rights in favor of a silent sense of satisfaction, her eyes settling over the completely unfazed face of her handsome lover.

"We're even, now," she added, unnecessarily.

"Then we should _both_ receive a reward," he suggested, his eyes sparkling madly as he leaned the slightest bit forward, "wouldn't you agree?"

He was trying. She knew what it was he was trying for. But she would make him work for it just a little longer.

"Oh, I don't think any reward will be necessary," she said with a lofty wave of her hand. "It is rewarding enough knowing we're both quite capable of..._beating _the other." She rose gracefully from her chair, reaching casually down to clear the board. "Don't you agree?"

Before Esme's hand could meet with the marble setting, Carlisle caught her in a firm grasp, his eyes rising from their joined hands to her curious face.

"Not entirely, no," he whispered, his voice gruff with honesty as he tugged her down slowly until her face was level with his.

Her fingers wriggled helplessly in her husband's hand as he eased her into his lap. He leaned over her seductively, giving her no room to refuse the reward he had in mind. Esme's back pressed against the table as Carlisle closed the distance between their lips, and the crystalline clamor of the last remaining chess pieces being knocked over behind her back was but a distant symphony in her ears.

His tongue conquered hers with every vigorous caress, explicitly possessive yet exquisitely tender. Whether this was his idea of castigation or strictly of praise was difficult to tell. It felt as though he were trying to claim back the power he had lost through his defeat...and it was a lovely feeling to behold. Esme knew her husband as a man who held little to no interest in the fire of competition, but here he seemed to be very competitive. Or at least his lips did.

Intent upon destroying her integrity, he carried his kisses south where his tongue was content to bathe the velvet skin of her throat. "How is this?" he purred into the crook of her neck.

"Hmm, lovely. Though I think you can be more impressive than that, darling."

Lifting her easily into both arms, Carlisle carried Esme through the hall until he had reached the open door of their bedroom. As he laid her gently down on the quilt, he pressed a final kiss to her lips as a vow to reclaim the power he had lost once and for all.

"I knew how this would end," she whimpered beneath the growing weight of his love.

"Oh, my love..." he whispered deeply, somehow both fond and desperate. "It always ends the same way."

Each having triumphed over the other in a simple game, they were ready to move into the true metaphor. Here, neither would best the other's skill, and neither would emerge victorious or defeated. In this game, neither the husband nor his wife would ever claim dominion over the other, no matter how many times they played.

* * *

_**A/N: **__I wanted to end this in a way that would be both fair and rewarding for both parties, so naturally I had to let Esme win her requested rematch. _

_Thank you for reading! I always appreciate hearing your thoughts. _


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